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Business and the Community

Last week I attended the first
Woodley Festival of Business, offering business advice to a wide range of
businesses in the local area.For those
of you that don’t know Woodley, (where I live), it’s sandwiched in between
Wokingham and Reading and as such, is known more as a residential area, rather
than a thriving hub of commerce.It’s 2nd
best place to live, apparently.

It was a great event, modest,
under-stated, yet very effective and I was surprised by the number and
diversity of businesses attending.One
contact made was a marketing consultant who lived only four doors away and who
walks his dog past my house every day. In today’s service-based economy, our small
businesses can be almost invisible, yet highly productive.I have worked with many businesses that
operate from home via an associate model, yet have built a pretty reasonable
empire without the overheads of premises and staff.

For 18 months, I have been an
active and founding member of Woodley Business Club and many business alliances
have been forged as a result.It was a privilege
to be able to showcase some of my expertise by providing the PR programme for
the event and a very nice surprise for the Woodley & Earley Chronicle to
showcase the Festival on its front page.I thank the many media for supporting the event, local newspapers, radio
and magazines and social media helped to spread the word amongst the local
business community.Even our local
dignitaries supported us, with two mayors attending, as well as local
councillors.Theresa May, MP and Home Secretary provided a
lovely quote for us:

“I am pleased to support the Woodley Festival of Business. This
is a great opportunity to celebrate Woodley businesses and to encourage new
ones to start up. A strong business community with thriving local companies is
vital to any town, and it is important that local business owners and
entrepreneurs can learn from best practice and share their experiences with
each other. I hope that this event will be a boost to Woodley businesses and
the town as a whole.” Theresa May, MP & Home
Secretary.

Other colleagues in the Woodley
Business Club provided branding, event marketing, catering and the venue.Our local schools worked hard to show their
media prowess by producing videos that captured business past and present in
Woodley.

Not everything went to plan on the
day, does it ever, but the most important thing was that people were provided
with the opportunity to network and realise that there is a thriving business
community on their doorstep.While I
often talk about content and the written word, face-to-face opportunities are
very powerful, yet many companies do not leverage them as much as they
could.Does their brand support what
they are selling?Do they have a plan
for maintaining contact with the leads that they make, how do they keep in
touch with them and what might entice them to buy?

Don’t let the contacts you make
fizzle out.Here are some top tips to
help you keep in touch:

·Connect with all the good contacts you made at
the event via social media

·Think of a special offer, or announce a piece of
news after the event and send details to all your contacts each month

·Invite them to come along to the Woodley
Business Club, so that you can make contact again

·Offer them a chat over coffee and see how you
can forge a beneficial partnership